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Quicken changes opening balance for no reason and without a notice

mikek753b

this has happened to many accounts regardless of bank
the Opening Balance is "R" transaction and should not be modified
but, quicken changes Opening Balance Amount behind User back
there is no notification or any prompt to confirm the change

as result for no reason Ending Balance doesn't match Online Balance
and I have to spend time every time to figure out why it can't be reconciled and check for statements, just to find that opening balance was changed and it's incorrect amount.

how to freeze Opening Balance Amount?
why Quicken does this?

I'm on current quicken 27.1.40.21
I reported a problem as well

thanks

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Comments

splasher

You have experienced the latest mess up of the Express Web Connect download method in conjunction with QMobile/Q-Web and the Quicken Cloud Account.

There have been a lot of reports of this happening lately.

The only thing you can do other than never doing a One Step Update to download transactions is to enter the correct Opening Balance in the Memo of those transactions so that you know what to return it to after Quicken messes up and changes it.

At this point in time, there is no cure.

Jay Conway

I have had the same problem (quicken changing the opening balance) now on two different accounts. It is a PITA to have to go back and either delete this quicken opening balance in the case where there wasn't an opening balance or calculate the correct opening balance so the account is correct and the final balance is corrected again. Quicken should not even be able to change your opening balance. I hope Quicken is working on fixing this random strange error.

Truaxis

I couldn't agree more. Same thing has happened to me TWICE!. On one download about a month ago it took an online deposit and ADDED it to my running balance AND added that same amount to my Opening Balance. And just 2 days ago I downloaded one of my standard bill transactions and Quicken SUBTRACTED that same amount from my Opening Balance as well as subtracted that same amount from my running balance. This type of confusion has NEVER happened before and I have been using Quicken since 1990 DOS versions. My question is there any other way other than Web Connect to download bank transactions?

splasher

Truaxis said:

… My question is there any other way other than Web Connect to download bank transactions?

The issue isn't with Web Connect (WC) downloads, it is with Express Web Connect (EWC) downloads. WC is where you go to the financial institution's website and download a Web Connect .QFX file and import it into Quicken. EWC is done via One Step Update and that is the one causing the problem.

mikek753b

regardless, quicken should NOT make any changes to the past and R transactions behind our / User back
marked R transactions should be immutable, unless User removes the R and makes or allows a change
plain and simple IMHO

bellhanley1

Very frustrating. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why my balance was completely messed up on my Capital One account only to finally notice that the opening balance of the account was mangled on my latest download.

qcknuser

same problem here. quicken, fix this! ive been using quicken since 1999. this is the most unstable its ever been. cant rely on it. would never use quicken to track investments.

Quicken Anja

Hello All,

Thank you for taking the time to report this issue here in the Community, though we apologize that you are experiencing this.

Our teams are looking into this issue and would like to collect some additional information in regard to the following; Are you using cloud sync? What banks/account types do you experience this with? And does it happen after every OSU?

Please check back and let us know! Thank you.

Kathmo

This happens with my UW Credit Union checking account and is making using Quicken pointless.

mikek753b

Hello @Quicken Anja

No, I don't use Cloud Sync, it was disabled long time ago as it caused many other issues for me, no mobile client app as result.
my main accounts are from PenFed credit card and ch and sav, while I got the same issue from another banks.
I submitted several issues via Quicken Support, that included attachments of all logs, pls. check for Tech Support for those details

No, it doesn't happened every time.

hope it helps to address this issue

PABluesMan

I am experiencing this issue as well, and there does not appear to be a pattern to it:

My Citizens Bank accounts sometimes have the opening balance modified, sometimes not. Same with Bank of America, Chase, Citi, Discover, and so on. It appears to be completely random.

This happens during the a One-Step update only. If I download a QFX file, it does not. At least, not so far.

I have been using Quicken since 1991. In the past couple of years, after Intuit was sold to some hedge fund, things started going downhill fast (as in, I had to completely rebuild my entire file from scratch a few months back because Quicken corrupted it during a one step update and it became unreadable, and I discovered that things had been going sideways under the hood for some months when I tried to restore backups). In addition, calling help usually does not -- well, help. I will spend up to 45 minutes on hold, then I get some condescending little puke who informs me that "things change, and you have to deal with it."

Right now, the only reason I am using Quicken is because I can't find anything else out there to replace it.

JoeB56

I too have experienced this problem with both Citizens Bank and Discover card (others are okay at this time - I belive they use direct connect, not express web connect which seems to be the real problem).

The issue began with an error during download for Citizens Bank sometime in the January early February time frame. The solution, according to Quicken is to deactivate the connection to the financial institution and then re-enable it. Then the initial download contains LOTS of transactions that are all automatically entered into the register regardless of an setting to the contrary. When this is complete the initial balance of the account and the order of the transaction in the register are different than before and do not agree with a paper register that is maintain in parallel (for at least twenty years). The only resolution was to restore a backup - which created additional problems causing the same issue for Discover Card.

I have contacted Quicken support regarding this multiple times with no resolution. In other words calling support has been a total waste of my time.

I have had to revert to manually performing downloads from each of these institutions. While this works it is sad that the product work flawlessly for twenty years.

splasher

@JoeB56
You should be able to connect to Discover using Direct Connect. Whether it is Discover Card or Discover Bank, go through the Advanced Options to select Direct Connect.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6031128/uploads/editor/wb/iljn2la1rf36.png

DO NOT SELECT Discover Card Account Center for your credit card.

splasher

@JoeB56

One additional comment, be careful with the first download, it may download duplicate transactions since the FITID maybe different due to the different download method and the transactions will not be seen as dups.
See this FAQ to get rid of unwanted transactions in the Downloaded Transactions tab:
FAQ - Getting rid of transactions in D/L tab

JoeZ412

Im getting incorrect balances after downloading as well. I can manually export from the Citizens website, but using web Connect, gets me an initial download of extra crap, and after deleting it all, my balances are off. Very aggravating.

Quicken Janean

Hi All, I am sorry for the trouble caused with your opening balances. We are looking into this issue. Can you please clarify if you are experiencing that your opening balance is off, that the difference does not equal the pending transactions at your bank?

Thank you for your patience as we gather more information and insight into this issue.

-Quicken Janean

mrzookie

@Quicken Anja

I first started seeing this problem almost 2 years ago and I've only experienced it with my Citi checking account (the only such account I have). I have multiple credit card accounts and have not seen it in any of them. Took me quite some time until I figured out what was going on. Note: I do not use Cloud Synch, Mobile or Bill Pay.

The problem is triggered by doing an account reset. The most common reason I do a reset is to fix the "break" in the link between Citi and Quicken (can't download transactions) caused as a result of doing a file restore (for any number of unrelated reasons). The reset restores the link, but also results in a change to the opening balance. The $ value of the change equals the $value of pending transactions on the Citi site at time. The $ value of payments is subtracted from the opening balance and the value of credits is added. I have, twice, seen a change I could not tie to a pending transaction, but those were worth pennies and I haven't seen that happen in at least a year.

It doesn't always happen, but its been fairly consistent.

Hope this helps.

petrhino

@"Quicken Anja"
I am also having this problem, which started with my OSU on July 13th. It happened first with my Synovus Bank checking account. Before the download, I had a positive balance, and after the download, I suddenly had a negative account balance. It had downloaded some matched transactions, no new transactions, and for some reason, two transactions from 2021. I knew immediately something had gone wrong, but couldn't figure out why the balance was wrong. Finally had time to call Customer Support a couple of days ago. Did a lot of things with help of agent, the last of which was made a file copy, deactivated and reactivated all accounts, and did a OSU. Had a long list of transactions to go through but thought it looked okay, so closed ticket. After going through all transactions though, 11 of my accounts had balances that did not match the online balance from the institution. Only 5 accounts were correct. I was so frustrated, I went back to my original file and started looking closer. All of my account balances matched online balances, except the one checking account that gave me the problem to start with. I decided to just make a journal entry correcting the balance, because I knew it was a glitch somewhere, and get on with my life because I don't have hours to spend on this again. Yesterday, tried to download transactions via OSU and got several CC-800 error codes for I think 5 different accounts. Deactivated and reactivated each of them. Did OSU, now 3 of my accounts (the original synovus checking account is wrong again, a BJ's credit card (Comenity bank) and a Chase credit card) have incorrect balances, even though no transactions downloaded for them. Finally figured out that the difference is the opening balance on one of them, the opening balance plus a $1.00 transaction on another, and on the original checking account, I still can't figure out what the heck it did but it's probably the opening balance plus other transactions. I don't remember what my opening balances were from all that time ago, but I just know that the difference between the online balances and the account balances showing in quicken is equaling that opening balance. That's when I searched and found this page and discovered other people having the same problem. I will not use OSU until this has been resolved, which is a huge inconvenience! Please, for the sanity of all of your customers, please fix this!!!
Additional details: Cloud Sync was turned off while working with the agent 2-3 days ago, but previous to that it was turned on for a few months as I was traveling and thought it would be helpful to use the app on my phone (it wasn't). Prior to that, I had it turned off.

petrhino

Correction to my last comment--the original synovus account now has a cc-800 error code and wouldn't download transactions. It is my USAA checking account that is off by opening balance, BJ's card is off by opening balance plus $1 transaction that was within a couple weeks of opening account in quicken, and the third is a chase credit card off by the opening balance. Please also, tell your agents off this problem. I called three separate times and no one said this was a known problem. They all thought my file was corrupted.

mikek753b

BTW I stopped using CloudSync an year or two ago, after it was major issue that overwrites accounts data.
I also check from time to time after every quicken upgrade to make sure this is OFF and isn't auto enabled
it's a bit off off topic - I can't use mobile quicken app as result, nether web due to high risk of corrupting my data. this is less evil to not have Cloud Mobile Sync
something is fundamentally got broken in past years

petrhino

I have been on the phone for HOURS over several days with Quicken support, including a call today from Tier 2 Support, which was more unhelpful than regular support. They say that I am having this problem of Quicken changing the balances because my computer backs up to Carbonite. I don't know if I believe them, because my computer has backed up to Carbonite for years and I have never had this problem with Quicken before. Does anyone else having this problem back up to the cloud through Carbonite or another program? They wanted me to download transactions for all of my accounts (17 of them!) accept all the (incorrect) transactions, then reconcile back to the beginning of the account (in some cases, that is 2008!!!) and then make a journal entry if I don't find duplicates that make it balance. It is not logical. Why would I take hours, even days, of my life to do that, when I already know what the problem is? Quicken changed the opening f-ing balance! I can just make a journal entry now correcting the balance. The f-ing problem is that tomorrow, if I download transactions again, it will be wrong again! So angry right now, I could spit fire.

tweetylover

Quicken is always off on my balances, it is now 7,000 difference than my back I am glad I'm just doing 2 accts with it, I also manually go to bank than do the export. this is getting worse and worse every month. Almost to the point of asking for money back and doing it myself. It's no good the way it's working folks..

KDL

I am also experiencing Q changing opening balances. Just today I discovered the 2nd instance within the last 30 days. I have seen it on one checking and one AMEX credit card account. The opening balance was 0, but is now 1515.96 which is not recognizable as pending transactions or anything else.

I have had connection issues on this account in the past, having to reset the online connection. I haven't tried to correlate the error with a reset event, but I'll be on the lookout now.

I do not use any backup service on this computer. I always catch this when I reconcile, but sometimes I get behind and all of a sudden, there it is. It can take an hour to track down. Now I'm checking the opening balance as the first culprit. This is straight-up a bug in Quicken and needs to be fixed.

I'm running Quicken Premier R40.21, build 27.1.40.21, on a Windows 10 PC.

mikek753b

the account balance is the most fundamental and required to be correct feature IMHO
if we can't trust the account balance for any reason, how much would be the trust to the quicken product?
yes, I'm angry, as I spent many hours to find and fix those changed by quicken opening balances for many accounts I track in the quicken
yes, I also submitted several support uploads and spent over support phone.

my statement remains - the opening balance transaction a must to be immutable, nothing, but User change.
all R transactions should not be changeable by quicken software, those are in R state for the reason IMHO.
any changes to be allowed to C state transactions only.
I'm ok to make the change from R to C before I can modify a transaction

modifying any R transaction behind our back is big issue and has to be fixed as top priority

no, I don't know how else to notify Quicken product management about this issue, pls help to address this fundamental issue.

BEEdwards66

I also have reported this issue after tracking it down. The support people don't seem to know about it.

BEEdwards66

Oh and this was associated with reconnecting to the bank. I didn't see any other transactions changed, but I have backed up to the April version for a while because of other bugs in the July update. It was when I updated to the latest version (late July) that I had to reconnect to the bank and then got bitten by this issue.

Ken Kuzma

I have had 3 occurrances of a bank or credit card download changing the opening account balance . It looks like it has happened to others with no fix offered. I am losing confidence in Quicken!!! HELP!!!

joecg

I removed my Chase accounts to be able to do the conversion. After that, my Opening Balance amount was arbitrarily adjusted. It makes no sense why this value is even touched when establishing an Online Service EWC/+ connection.

This problem has been on-going for a few years and there are many many such reports. For me happens every time, only-and-only if I deactivate and reactivate an EWC account (nothing to do with OSU or other functions - in my case).

Clearly Quicken has not been able to identify the issue given the variations and inconsistencies or they would've fixed it. It is frustrating to say the least. I suggest that you follow @splasher 's suggestion immediately after the initial post. That is what most of us have resorted to.

cmumathwhiz

Add me to the list of people who this happens to. Just spend 10 minutes or so trying to figure out why my ending balance was off. Yup - just got an account reconnected to download transactions and it messed up my opening balance. Luckily it was easy to fix since I knew it was $0. Other accounts I've put it in the account memo, so I can easily get it without having to restore from backup.

I understand that Quicken is trying to fix it, but it should come with a prompt "Based on your bank's data, Quicken wants to update the opening balance to $xxx, and it is currently $yyy, would you like to update it?" When I change it myself I have to jump through several steps to confirm I want to change it - when Quicken wants to update it - the similar prompts should happen. Just like I get to confirm all the other downloaded transactions.